Slum children of gas tragedy to tell their
tale to US teenagerswww.worldtrek.org to host chat on worst
industrial disasterThe Hindustan TimesBhopal, June 4

Ignored in their own land, teenagers living in abject poverty in the slums inhabited by
the Bhopal gas disaster survivors here are about to rediscover their voice over the
worldwide web.

While most of the Bhopal gas disaster survivors would be preparing to turn in for the
night after hard labour on another hot summer day on June 9, a bunch of these teenagers
would log on to a non-profit educational website for high school students in the USA at
9.30 pm (Indian Standard Time), telling the horrifying details of the industrial
catastrophe.

The site is called The Odyssey World Trek (www.worldtrek.org).
A similar online chat involving teenagers of the Yamuna Pushta, one of the largest slums
in Delhi, was held last month.

An educator with the site, Monica Flores, was in Bhopal recently to make arrangements
for the chat that aims to bring American teenagers face-to-face with the worst industrial
disaster in the world.

Farah Khan, the 'trekker' of the chat from Bhopal, will communicate the queries posted
in the chat room to Bhopal teenagers before translating and posting their replies.

She says the participants selected for the session were either born to gas victim
parents or were toddlers at the time of the leak of lethal fumes from the Union Carbide
plant in December 1984. They will be from gas-hit slums like Arif Nagar, Kainchi Chhola
and JP Nagar.

Programme director of the site Karina Alexanyan informed in an email that the site's
mission was to use the Internet to promote global awareness among youth and to involve
them in activities to create positive change in the world.

The site has over 2,000 registered teachers and classroom and receives an average of
30,000 hits every day. Students are connected to a group of five educators, who have
visited over 30 countries in the past two years.

The session with Bhopal gas disaster victim teenagers will be the eighth such
interaction. Earlier sessions were held with youths from Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Turkey,
Iran and lndia. Ms. Alexanyan said the idea behind the chats was to establish links among
students and sensitise American high school students to important global happenings. All
the questions are screened by a moderator and then posted live on the site to filter out
inappropriate material.

Two days before the chat session, some reports regarding the gas tragedy would be put
up to allow teachers and students in the USA to know the background before the chat
begins. The site's aim is to allow American students to realise the implications of a
colossal human tragedy like the gas disaster, Ms. Alexanyan wrote in her email.

'As for the indigent teenage survivors, it will be a 'once in a lifetime'
experience," Ms. Khan said in Bhopal.